


Wings Are(n't) Made to Fly

by arabmorgan



Series: Kink Meme Fills [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Avengers (2012), Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 08:44:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8660374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: Steve just can't catch a break; either his body is too scrawny or his wings are too huge. At least he's fallen in with a rag-tag bunch of misfits who have no problems accepting him for exactly who he is.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had so, so much fun with this; I have a huge weakness for A/B/O and wings, and now I get to write both! I kind of almost want to write more of this verse. Prompt at the bottom since I'd love it if you guys went in blind :)
> 
> The dub-con is quite fleeting, and doesn't last.

If there had ever been any doubt that the Avengers were a messed up lot, one look at their collective wings would be certain to hammer it right home.

For one thing, fully half of them didn’t even _have_ wings.

Well, Thor wasn’t supposed to have any in the first place, being an actual alien and all. It made his complete lack of wing etiquette understandable, but still horrifying.

The team had been living in the Tower for about a month when a sudden, bloodcurdling screech sent them all running pell-mell into the kitchen, because that screech had belonged to _Bruce_.

They found the mild-mannered beta baring his teeth at a very shocked Thor, wings flared out in a furious show of uncharacteristic dominance, eyes flashing greener than his feathers.

A very loud silence descended on them all, before Bruce seemed to shake himself, looking abashed as he took in the team’s apprehensive faces.

“I’m sorry. It’s just – Thor stroked me and I panicked.” He seemed to shrink in on himself, wings tucking back into place with a nervous flutter.

“Thor, you can’t just _touch_ people’s wings whenever you feel like it! Weren’t you briefed about this?” Tony grabbed hold of Bruce’s arm, looking defensive.

“There’s got to be a really, _really_ high level of trust before any wing-touching happens,” Clint chipped in, looking upset. “It’s a really private area; makes us feel vulnerable, okay, buddy?”

Thor looked suitably chastised, and if he found it ironic to be lectured about wing etiquette by the other two members of the team who didn’t have said appendages either – well, he didn’t say anything about it.

Clint didn’t seem overly bothered about his missing limbs – he had been living without his wings for a much longer time than Tony, after all, and he told them the story one night over drinks.

“I had this friend doing the flying trapeze act back then, and I convinced her to let me try it out one night. I was young, stupid, maybe a little bit smashed, y’know.” His smirk was wry. “Obviously, I fell. It was only, what, thirty feet? But I landed on my back, smashed all those hollow bones bad enough that they decided the only option was to amputate.”

Clint shrugged and toasted into the silence that followed.

The archer still had little nubs that stuck out of his scapulae, covered in fine down that had grown in smoothly over the stumps. Their motor function was unimpeded, and often enough they could be seen shifting and twitching in response to the environment, even if they were no longer full-sized.

Tony didn’t even have anything like that, and the only reason Steve knew that was because he’d had to put the inventor to bed one night, after he’d gotten black-out drunk and vomited all over himself.

Steve had physically recoiled the moment he had lifted Tony’s shirt enough to uncover the omega’s bare back, before a wave of shame washed over him for his awful reaction.

Whatever terrible wounds the Ten Rings had inflicted on Tony, they had clearly been cauterised with the least possible amount of care, leaving scarred and pitted indentations where his wings had once sprouted.

His feathers had been a bright, vivid red, if Steve remembered rightly from all the pre-Afghanistan photos, which he supposed explained why the Iron Man armour was the colour it was.

But for something like this to happen to an _omega_. His wings were flaring in distress, angled forwards protectively, and it was all he could do to stop himself from gathering Tony’s unconscious body into a hug.

Both betas and omegas nested during the breeding season (and Bruce had said something about the beta nesting instinct being relatively recently developed, or else humans would probably have died out with the way omega numbers had been declining since the wars), but even Steve knew that the primal mothering instinct was far stronger in omegas than betas.

There had been enough studies documenting the differences between beta and omega mothers, one of them being the way they reacted to threats towards their young. Betas were more likely to throw themselves bodily over their children, their intellectual forebrain remaining dominant even in emergencies; on the other hand, omegas tended to crouch down _beside_ their children, snap out their wings, and cover their young with those vulnerable appendages.

Primitive instincts didn’t always make practical sense.

Of course, Steve found it hard to imagine hard-headed, foul-mouthed Tony as having any sort of affection for children, but it didn’t stop him from feeling sorry for his teammate all the same. Feeling sorry for others was his defence mechanism, the SHIELD-assigned psychologist had informed him. It prevented him from spending too much time wallowing in self-pity.

Not that he was _embarrassed_ about his wings or anything like that. It was just that – well, they were so _large_. They were even larger than Bruce’s, whose longest primaries stretched just a few inches beyond his fingertips when fully extended, an unintentional gift from the Hulk.

It didn’t matter so much for Bruce anyway, since he was a beta, but Steve’s wings were fully an arm's length and a half. It was _unnatural_ , was what it was, for an alpha to have such massive pinions when they were, for all intents and purposes, the absolute definition of vestigial.

It was the omegas and betas who displayed and preened to their heart’s content each breeding season, some even going as far as to dye their feathers in garishly eye-catching patterns. All an alpha could do was to sit tight and hope that _someone_ would take a fancy to them.

While walking about SHIELD in those first confusing months, he had heard more than one agent gossiping about the oddity of an alpha having such a wingspan, how anomalous he was, what a pity it was the serum had enlarged his wings as well or else he would be just _perfect_ , how much the omegas wished they had his wings since they were wasted on _him_.

His enhanced hearing had never felt more like a curse.

He had spoken about it to the team once, but Clint had said, off-hand, “At least you have wings, man.” It had not been meant unkindly, but it had stung all the same.

“I don’t know why you hate it. I’ve never seen whiter feathers; it makes you look like an angel.” Tony had immediately jumped in, seeming to take offense in Steve’s place, and he had never felt more grateful to the mercurial billionaire.

Natasha had smacked Clint upside the head reprovingly, but the realisation that he had been complaining about his perfectly functional wings in front of her only made Steve feel even worse.

Natasha’s feathers were shiny and black, but most often the first thing people noticed about her wings was how crooked and misshapen they were on her back. The right one didn’t quite lay flat against her spine when folded up, leaving her general silhouette unnaturally bulky.

Given her occupation, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was a result of multiple breaks and bones that had never set quite right. A relic of the Red Room, she said once, quite unconcerned, and no one had asked any further than that.

What was obvious enough was that she had difficulty opening and closing them without help, which only made her that much better at her job, since any tells that her wings might have transmitted were effectively eliminated.

Really, sometimes Steve wondered if Director Fury had actually taken a look at the wings of potential candidates before issuing the invitation to join the Avengers – an ‘only people with wing abnormalities may apply’ sort of situation – because he couldn’t imagine randomly plucking any six people off the street and ending up with not a _single_ pair of normal wings among them.

If he’d wanted to initiate team bonding via misfit status, he’d surely gone the right route.

It didn’t help that breeding season was almost upon them, and everywhere he looked, there was sure to be _some_ displaying going on. The only place he truly felt at ease in was the Tower, where no one stared and everyone understood. (Well, except Thor, but there wasn’t any judgment coming from _him_.)

But even the Avengers weren’t free from the instinct to display and nest.

Bruce was oddly antsy for a few days, before suddenly upping and flying off to Virginia (“ _Betty_ ,” Tony stage-whispered as they waved him off in one of the billionaire’s private jets), while the only difference in Natasha’s regular behaviour was that she kept stealing the knives out of the common kitchen. The fact that she usually returned them the next day was the only clue that the thefts were largely involuntary.

Steve couldn’t help but wonder how Natasha had intended to decorate her nest with those knives.

Tony, naturally, was the most frantic. A large box full of various kinds of fabric arrived one afternoon, which the omega carted off to his penthouse on his own. When he wasn’t carrying out his lofty interior design plans, he was prancing about the common floor in a way that very strongly suggested his wings would be fanned out enticingly if he still had them.

The scent, too, was a dead giveaway – the kind that omegas (and betas, to a less potent extent) released in private when they were in full mating dance mode. It was immensely aromatic and basically screamed, _I am interested in you!_ and _Be my mate!_

Of course, Steve had been fully aware of Tony’s sex appeal long before he’d started displaying (actually, Iron Man selflessly saving the whole of New York had been a _massive_ draw factor for him), but never before had he been so conscious of the omega’s constant proximity to him. The Tower was _huge_ ; how was it that they kept ending up in the same place?

Unfortunately, since there were two alphas in the general vicinity and just the one omega, Steve wasn’t quite sure if the scent was intended for him or for Clint.

He’d never had even the faintest whiff of omega scent before the serum, and after that, the constant travel and the war in general had mostly interrupted any passing breeding seasons. It was no surprise then that he actually, physically leaned towards Tony every time the omega strutted past, emitting pheromones like there was no tomorrow – no surprise, but terribly embarrassing all the same.

For his part, Clint was completely oblivious to Tony’s constant displays. Instead, he seemed more preoccupied with his phone than ever, and abruptly disappeared on a supposedly top secret mission just a few days before the actual start of the breeding season, leaving Steve alone in the Tower with an increasingly seductive Tony.

The omega’s scent was stronger than ever, now that he was ready to be bred, and Steve would be lying if he said that he wasn’t completely and utterly _terrified_.

“Clint’s gone and Tony’s still displaying,” he said plaintively to Natasha one night, wide-eyed with consternation. “I don’t know what he means.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. You do know what he means.”

Steve’s jaw dropped at her curt response. “But,” he started, before shutting his mouth.

Natasha gave him a small, amused smile. “Look,” she said gently, and paused for a moment.

He just stared at her, unsure what he was supposed to be looking at.

And then her scent hit him, strong and attractive, but distinctly different from Tony’s – and just as suddenly, it dissipated.

Her brow rose pointedly. “Clint is gone and he’s still displaying,” she said, and that was really all that needed to be said.

Steve was convinced, but he dithered about on the night of anyway; he just couldn’t help it. Wasn’t he being terribly presumptuous? What if he showed up on Tony’s floor only to be greeted with, “Hey, Cap! What are _you_ doing here?” He couldn’t imagine anything worse than being pitied by _Tony_ , who generally had so little pity to dole out that it would be humiliating to be a recipient.

Then he remembered the half-exasperated roll of Natasha’s eyes, as if the possibility of a mutual attraction couldn’t have been any more obvious to her. He thought of Tony eyeing him openly as he walked past, and the omega’s unchanged demeanour after Clint’s suspicious departure.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

With a deep breath, he halted his pacing and stepped into the waiting elevator, suddenly terrified that he would be too late. It was one in the morning – when had _that_ happened? Maybe Tony would already be asleep. Maybe he would be too tired to fool around.

When the doors slid open, the penthouse was dark, except for the gentle orange glow seeping out of Tony’s half-open bedroom door. Tentatively, Steve walked over and pushed the door fully open, feeling oddly exposed on the threshold.

Tony was sitting half-reclined on his bed, frowning at a projection in bright blue before him, but he looked over the moment Steve swung the door open, his face clearly brightening. “Steve!” he exclaimed, sweeping the projection away and twisting sideways so fast that it looked like he might have jolted his back. “I thought you weren’t going to show up.”

Steve felt his face heat up, feathers rustling nervously. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure if you were displaying to, uh, me,” he said lamely.

Tony snorted. “Who _else_ would I be displaying to? Clint? I’m pretty sure he has a mate hidden away somewhere that he’s not telling us about.”

Steve smiled sheepishly. “Sorry,” he mumbled again, moving closer to Tony’s bed and seeing for the first time exactly what the omega had done with all the delivered fabric.

The majority of it seemed to be delicate lace and satin, woven together and interspersed with simple cotton and some thick, soft wool, forming a soft mat with raised sides that resembled an actual bird’s nest. Most of the bed had been ravaged and dug into, so that the nest fit snugly right into the mattress, large enough for them both to lie in.

Tony latched on to his wrist, tugging him down to the nest with anxious eyes. “Do you like it?”

Steve laughed. “Tony, it’s _amazing_ ,” he said sincerely, running his hand over the soft surface in wonder. “You made it on your own?”

Tony quirked a very arrogant grin. “ _Obviously_.”

And then he all but leaped on Steve, pushing the alpha down onto his back and kissing him hard.

Steve found himself responding before he even knew what was going on, lips parting easily for Tony’s tongue, but the whole position felt distinctly _wrong_ to him. He tried to sit up, to flip them over so he could settle more comfortably between Tony’s legs. As much as he hated extending his wings fully, they were straining to flare, the contraction of his muscles almost painful given the forced immobility of his wings.

Tony reared back the moment Steve got them both upright, the super soldier’s wings immediately snapping out behind him and flapping in his excitement. Tony shifted further back, his eyes suddenly hooded and wary.

The realisation hit Steve like a physical blow. _Oh_. Tony didn’t _like_ his wings, did he? They were so huge and ungainly and plain. He immediately tucked them up, paling as he stared at the narrow-eyed omega.

“Tony?” he said quietly.

The billionaire licked his lips, looking uncertain. “I know it’s weird,” he said slowly, like he was forcing each word out against his will, “but I prefer to be on top for the first time. If that’s okay?”

There was a soft rustle as Steve rearranged his wings before lying back down. “Uh, yeah, sure.” His voice came out softer than he would have liked, but he couldn’t deny that it hurt a little, that the only person who wanted to mate with him didn’t want to have to see his wings while they did the deed.

But then, it wasn’t as if he liked seeing his _own_ wings, so he couldn’t quite blame Tony for that.

Slowly, Tony crawled back onto him, kissing him less hurriedly this time while they both struggled to remove their clothes without separating for too long.

He’d expected Tony to ride him, had figured that this could be an amazing experience all the same, but when he felt a finger pressing lightly at his dry hole, he realised that something was incredibly wrong here.

He jerked away with a shocked exhalation, only just resisting the impulse to shove Tony bodily off him. “What are you _doing_?” Panic made his voice sharp, even though he knew quite well that he could overpower Tony at any time.

Tony only looked earnest and bewildered. “I thought – I thought you said you were okay with me topping. It’s just this once.”

“I thought you meant – I mean, _I’m_ the alpha here,” Steve blurted, trying not to trip over his own words. “I don’t produce slick.”

“Well, that’s what lube is for.” Tony blinked.

Steve sighed, moving to sit up and sending Tony scrambling backwards again. “I don’t think I’m okay with this,” he said carefully, quietly. He didn’t like the mistrust in the omega’s eyes, like he expected Steve to attack him and pin him down at any moment.

Tony seemed to visibly deflate, making him look even smaller than he usually was. “Well, okay,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry then.”

Steve worried at his lip, feeling awful. “If you don’t want to see my wings, I can lie down,” he said plainly, “but I don’t know if I’m okay with being, uh, penetrated.”

Tony’s eyes snapped wide, and he sounded almost furious when he demanded, “What do you _mean_ I don’t want to see your wings?”

Steve paused, feeling like he no longer knew what was going on. “I thought you wanted me to lie down so I wouldn’t, you know…” He shrugged, trailing off, eyes darting off to the left to avoid Tony’s horrified expression.

“Steve, Steve, _no_.” He abruptly found himself with an armful of omega, as Tony pressed repeated kisses to his forehead. “I thought I told you before, I _love_ your wings. They’re the biggest damn wings I’ve ever seen, and I _love_ big things.” He accompanied that with a dirty-sounding trill of delight that sent a full-body shudder through Steve.

A low moan escaped his throat when he felt Tony rubbing softly along the edges of his tucked wings, his head dipping to press against the omega’s shoulder. It felt terrifying to have someone touching his wings so freely – terrifying and very, very arousing, given that this someone was _Tony Stark_.

“I thought that was why you wanted to be on top,” he sighed, enjoying the soothing motions of Tony’s fingers brushing through his feathers, encouraging him to extend.

Slowly, he acquiesced, and he could see the shadow of his wings on Tony’s face as he spread them wide. It was a face full of undeniable awe, and he felt his heart give a painful lurch.

“Beautiful,” Tony sighed, kissing Steve again before drawing back just a little, the smile on his face gradually fading.

Sensing the mood, his wings drooped accordingly, tucking back against his spine, although not as tightly as before. “What is it?” he asked, raising a hand to cradle Tony’s cheek lightly.

Tony closed his eyes, leaning into the touch despite the discomfort on his face. “Okay, look,” he said after a moment, staring fiercely at Steve. “After Afghanistan, I couldn’t – I have to take you at least once, so I _know_ I have some power here. I need to know, otherwise I might panic when you hold me down.”

Steve actually felt the blood drain from his face at Tony’s words.

“Wait, no,” Tony said hurriedly, obviously seeing the look on his face. “ _Nothing_ happened in Afghanistan – I mean, unpleasant things happened, but not like what you’re thinking. It’s just, someone having that power over me – I can’t, I just _can’t_. Not until I actually feel that the tables can be turned. It’s just once, really, Steve, I _swear_. It’s just something my mind needs.”

His words were coming faster now, fingers moving fretfully over Steve’s bicep, and suddenly he realised that the shame darkening Tony’s eyes was something he recognised all too well.

“Tony.” He pressed a finger to the omega’s lips softly, allowing his own smile to widen. “It’s okay, I get it. Just…be gentle, okay?” His grin as he lay back down once more was teasing.

Tony was staring at him, wide-eyed, before he sprang back into motion, vibrant with energy once more. Again, Steve found that they were kissing, something that Tony was exceedingly good at initiating with extreme speed.

“You are in _such_ good hands,” Tony whispered, his voice dark with promise, and Steve felt his wings give an excited little shiver.

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/21438.html?thread=54278846#t54278846):
>
>> Humans have vestigial wings. They're pretty small, even the largest set isn't any longer than their arms, and useless for flight. They also break pretty easily, anyone with even moderate strength could snap someone's wing bones if they wanted to. So grabbing someone's wings is a show of dominance while letting someone touch your wings is a sign of trust.
>> 
>> Alphas usually have small wings in comparison to the rest of their body, while omegas have bigger wings. Only a small percentage of the population is made up of omegas. Most people are betas with mid-size wings. 
>> 
>> Right before breeding season, omegas and betas wanting to breed build nests and display their wings to attract mates. Some people dye their feathers to look more attractive. It's expected that if you are doing this, you are the bottom in the relationship.
>> 
>> The Avengers are special snowflakes. Half of them don't have wings at all and the ones that do have much larger wings than most would consider possible. Still most of them tend to stick to the gender norms within reason.
>> 
>> Which is why when an alpha visits an omega's nest during breeding season he is surprised to find things turned around on him, with the omega topping him.


End file.
